Author:
Beta: lornelover and marsterslady
Pairing: No pairing.
Set: Post-Chosen.
Rating: PG.
For: The 12 Days of Ficlets Challenge. Day 04.
Loss of innocence. When she was fifteen and fought her first vampire, that was when she lost her innocence. Most people like to assume it was when she slept with Angel at age 17. But she didn't need a penis to lose her innocence. Giles sat across from her telling her of all the new slayers. Of all the girls who would lose their innocence.
When a birthday came, something always happened. Something big, something like changing. Something that made her irrevocably older. She had learned that she couldn't trust her Watcher or the Council of Antiquated British Men at the age of 18. Some birthday present to be fed so a serial rapist turned vampire. Her mother had almost died.
At age 19, everything seemed to be bright and shiny. She had a new boyfriend who had fun demon fighting toys. Studies often presented themselves as a problem, but Willow and Tara were always there to help. Then she almost killed him. He had nearly killed her before, and she had nearly killed Giles then. But the Initiative had hauled Ethan Rayne off. Problem done and solved in one night. Of course, the fights with Riley were only foreshadowing those to come.
Things had seemed small then. But wait until she turned 20. She was fighting a Hell God, and Dawn wasn't real. Dawn had cut herself with a knife that night proving that she was real. Letting the blood flow all over the carpets. It was all Joyce could take. Dawn lost her innocence that night, and Buffy became something other than the big sister.
When one turns 21, she is supposed to go drinking all night. Instead, Dawn had trapped them all in the house. Birthdays eighteen and nineteen had been all about her stand-in-father and birthdays twenty and twenty-one turned out to be all about her monk-made-sister. She couldn't have been more humiliated that night. Dawn was stealing and having vengeance demons grant wishes. Didn't she grow up on the Hellmouth? Xander and Anya were trying to set her up. Willow whimpered over Tara and tried to prove that she wasn't addicted to magic anymore. And Spike was making come-hither looks and talking about making a meal of that poor boy, what's-his-face, all night.
She decided after 21, there were going to no more parties. The end of the innocence of balloon animals, cake, and presents. Plus they were so busy that only Xander, Willow, and Dawn left cards under her pillow. She cried herself to sleep as she read them. The end of birthday parties. Spike was right; they only caused troubles.
As she sat turning 22 on a pub stool in London having fish and chips with Giles who was busy discussing the latest problems with their overabundance of slayers, she was happy. She finally felt like that adult. As if all those responsibilities that she had carried around since the first vampire in that first cemetery in Los Angeles were finally molding into something. Birthdays were for children who still believed in the Tooth Fairy and smeared chocolate cake all over their faces.
"And one last thing," Giles interrupted her thoughts. He reached into his briefcase, pulling out a small box. "Happy Birthday Buffy."